You wouldn’t say that Elizabeth Warren has ignored government corruption. She hasn’t. But she’s released a new plan to be sure she has every angle covered.
Warren had already proposed “closing loopholes so everyone who lobbies must register, shining sunlight on their activities, banning foreign governments from hiring Washington lobbyists, and shutting down the ability of lobbyists to move freely in and out of government jobs,” among other things. Her new plan expands on that to extend the definition of lobbyist to “include all individuals paid to influence government,” creates even tighter restrictions for corporate lobbyists specifically, and bans lobbying for foreign entities altogether. The plan bans lobbyists from donating to or raising any money for political campaigns.
Warren would also tax entities that spend more than $500,000 a year on lobbying, and send that tax to the parts of the government that research and make policy on the kinds of issues that lobbyists seek to influence. She’d further strengthen the government’s ability to push back against lobbyist influence by raising congressional staff salaries—making the revolving door to higher-paid private jobs less tempting—and reopening the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment “to help members of Congress understand new areas of science and technology,” making lobbyists’ expertise less likely to sway lawmakers without enough access to reliable information.
She’s not done there. Warren’s plan would also “crack down on corporations who manipulate agencies by submitting sham research—like the climate denial studies bought and paid for by oil and gas magnates like the Koch Brothers—by requiring individuals who submit a public comment on a proposed rule to disclose editorial conflicts-of-interest related to any non-peer-reviewed research they cite,” and would shut corporate executives out of the process of writing the rules that their companies have to follow.
The plan also includes significant pro-worker-and-consumer measures, such as banning forced arbitration that keeps regular people from getting their day in court, mandatory class action waivers that prevent people from joining together to sue companies that have harmed them, and more.
And Warren would put teeth on all of this through stronger ethics enforcement and closing a loophole in bribery laws.